North Korea Propaganda Videos

North Koreans Get the Message

Take a moment and observe the propaganda videos of the people we are threatening. They are not planning to die.  They are planning to kill.

It helps to understand what your opponents are thinking.

We will strike North Korea if needed.

Donald Trump has announced an end to the current US policy toward North Korea known as "strategic patience."  Trump has defined that strategy as a cowardly failure that gave North Korea time further to develop nuclear weapons and delivery systems.  Time to take care of business, Trump said.   

A US diplomat told UN ambassadors "He will be the president that will deal with this. . . . [T]here will be a military solution if needed."

Americans felt relief.

This open talk of a "military solution" did not make big waves in the US because it was lost among the news clutter of the rest of the new Trump agenda.  Besides, Americans generally assume that North Korea is small, weak, and primitive.  It is a version of the same assumptions western powers had of Japan a hundred years ago, prior to the Russian-Japanese War.  North Koreans is poor, conditions are primitive, their scientists second rate.  The failed missile test this week confirmed this view, and there was a great deal of re-assuring news coverage.  Americans have in mind a pecking order of dominance: we are big and strong and North Korea is a pipsqueak.  And their missiles don't work.  

We are Americans.  We can wipe them out if we choose to. 

Comments by Americans on news stories about North Korea express this popular notion:  "If they do anything we will bomb them to smithereens."  "We will squash them like a bug."  "It will be total suicide."  "Let's get it over with and level them."

Thucydides' description of the causes of war are still relevant: self interest, honor, and fear.  Trump and Kim Jong-un both have honor at stake and both have fear of the intentions of the other.  Self interest may not matter.  Besides, a great many Americans assume, we can squash the fat kid and his primitive country.

Click Here: See the pride, power, and resolve

Americans should take a moment to think how the other side perceives this.   Kim Jung-un perceives--accurately--that the American president is threatening a sudden attack.  He openly says it is on the table as an option if they don't do what we want.

More than honor is at stake.  His own power and the sovereignty of his people are at stake.  Honor, fear, and self interest.

Message to his people and the world:  North Korea is not a victim.  It is a great and powerful and independent nation.   Kim Jong-un is communicating to his people that North Korea is a proud nation will not knuckle under to American aggression.  North Korea's leaders and public do not envision national suicide.  They consider themselves ready to fight defensively on their own beaches and aggressively by destroying American cities.  And they can survive a nuclear attack.  Their subways are 300 feet underground.

Click Here: Destroy Washington DC

One does not need to understand Korean to understand the propaganda videos and indeed the videos are a classic example of this blog's premise that political messaging is done with tone and body language, not words.   The music alone tells the story.  Watch this video and listen to the voice of the extraordinary narrator.   Her voice makes clear they are defending a proud independent resolute nation.  There is no reluctance or sense of tragedy.   They will defend themselves and kill tens of millions of Americans with heads held high in victory.

Click Here. North Korea Triumph. Kill American with glee.

Another propaganda video got widespread play in North Korea, for local audiences and to put fear into the minds of Americans.   The video joyfully depicts the bombing of American cities, with missiles raining down on San Francisco and an American flag.  They will squash us like a bug as we sit exposed and they survive and thrive in subways 300 feet underground.

The communication is with action, posture, tone, music, and images.  The message is utterly clear.   North Korea is good and great.  Americans are vile invaders.  North Koreans have pride and power and they are prepared to lash out and destroy the foreign threat and do so joyfully.    American are familiar with the tone of this and we have seen it before in movies when the calvary saves the fort, when the American ships win at Midway, when Americans land at Omaha Beach, when the earthlings kill the aliens, and when we talk about squashing North Korea like a bug.  

North Korea plans victory

The specter of war becomes more understandable when one watches the propaganda of a nation we are threatening.  Donald Trump does not have them cowering.  

They are not imagining Pyongyang being destroyed.  They are imagining the destruction of Washington DC, San Francisco, New York and the USA.